China plans double-digit boost in military spending

BS. First of all evacuating wounded from wars the US shouldn't be involved in is absurd as well as the fact that these individuals can be tranported directly to the United States without any medical issues.

The B-2 bomber can strike anywhere in the world from the United States and has done so repeatedly. During the Gulf War B-2's attacked from advance bases in Guam, a US territory, and during 2003 Iraq War they deployed from Whitman Air Force base in the United States. B-52's have had world-wide capabilities since the 1960's from US bases located at US territories.

No, the US military should not be used within the United States for any operational purposes (training excepted). That is not the purpose of the US military.

The only problem with the Mexican-American border relates to irrational immigration laws that prohibit individuals interested in lawful employment from entering the United States and the War on Drugs which creates a huge black market based upon US demand. Revise immigration laws and end the War on Drugs and there isn't a US-Mexico border problem. Of note there has been a zero increase in illegal and undocumented aliens in the US for the last three years. Obviously border contol today is effective based upon this fact.

 

Regarding the usa bases in germany. It will depend on the Nato changes, the eventual restructure.

As the EU fund more resources to their military, the power structue will change. European leadership (brussels) will want more power. With a furthering negative view of Usa control. An example of this was the libyian war, where the clear divisions could be seen among the Nato membership.

At some point the EU will want the usa bases for themselves. As there will be no logical military reason for america to stay, with the expanding euro military budget and EU expansion in economic and geographic locations.

 

Who are you arguing with? I don't disagree with you except on the subject of illegal aliens. They should be shot on sight along with their employers.

 

That is not paid from DoD funds, the money for war fighting comes from a totally different budget. As far as program cuts and decrease in operational budgets for training, I do blame that on the current administration (although I would not blame President Obama directly, a lot of people have their fingers in this cookie jar).

 

their blue navy is still sucks, but improving. there are more than 3 52 type destroyer. i belief there are 52A-52C range type destroyer, more than 3, not nearly as much as US. but the point is china don't build massive amount of destroyer and sub not because manufacture capabilities, but because they are improving each version of destroyer before they decide to build more/year. china shipyards has the ability to build about 10-dozen these destroyer/yr, but the PLAN is not interest in building that many ships right now, they rather improve the quality of their ships before building more.

another issue is training, all these chinese new destroyer require alot skilled/experenice sailors, and china may able to build dozen destroyer/yr, but they don't have enough sailor to man all these destroyer. I mean carrier operation, or newly acquire destroyer require years training to operate effectivelly, china just don't have that many sailor to operate all these new toys.

also there are political reason not to build that many ships/yr. imagine how japanese/korea feel when china start building destroyer by the dozen/year. china want to keep low profile, and reduce arm race in the region.

china has the ability to defend themself now, back in 90's US can park its carrier group near china coast, but now its something we have to think twice before we do that.

 

We did a lot of downsizing in the decade after the Cold War ended. But it had also been going on for several years before that, when tensions eased in Europe as the Soviet Sattelites started to collapse.

I think the biggest trend I have seen in the last 10 years or so has been a shift away from who is actually employed by the military, and this creates a bubble which is less easy to change.

When I first entered the military almost 30 years ago, most of the jobs on a base were done by the military itself. About the only place you saw a lot of civilians at work was in the exchange complex. Mess duty, gate guards, supply clerks, gym attendents, and most other jobs of this sort were handled by people in uniform, either as their job or as a short term position.

Today, these same jobs are now done by civilians. Instead of having a private spend a month washing dishes, they now hire people to do it. Instead of having service members guarting their own gates to the base, they hire civilians. When you go to most posts in the US, it is not even supply personnel giving them their gear, it is a civilian.

This to me is nothing but an employment program for civilians, and it puts a huge bloat in the defense budget. If we could fire 2/3 of the worthless ones and put the jobs back into the hands of our military where it belongs, we would save billions of dollars.

 

Been proposed before, simply can't do it.

Posse comitatus.

 

The US has been upgrading each destroyer it builds as well. The Arleigh Burke class has 5 major changes over the years, and many smaller ones. On the surface, the USS Arleigh Burke looks very much like the USS Spruance. But inside, the ships are vastly different (as the displacement shows, 6,800 tons for the Burke, 9,200 tons for the Spruance).

The way the Chinese are doing things are incredibly wastefull and inefficient. But it is also traditionally how they do things. They build a small number of units of something, make major changes to try and bring it up to what they promise, then start all over again doing the same thing. In this way, they constantly have projects under development and under testing, but rarely very much actually operational.

And they do this with almost everything in their military. Tanks, aircraft, artillery, missiles, and ships. New development, best ever, more research, new item even better then last item, more research, new item again!

This is simply the difference between the way the countries do business. But it is also a difference between Communist central planning, and Capitolism free market. You have to realize, the Government builds each of these ships, and decides how and what goes into it. In the US, the Navy puts out a request for bid, and approves the designes with changes. But it is almost entirely in the hands of a private contractor. And if the item requested does not perform as required, then the production can be ended or handed off to another company.

For example, we have had 2 different builders of the Arleigh Burke class ships, both General Dynamics (formerly Bath Iron Works) and Nothrop-Grumman (formerly Litton Industries) have built these ships for the government. And they are still both competing with each other for future contracts.

 

US also building thing incrementally. all the equipment are upgraded throughout its lifetime.

chinese don't have experience, technology that we have. their military was so far behind in the 80's, they need more time, experiment, R&D to get it right.

the first 54 destroyer was build almost a decade ago. then they build 54B, improve version of previous 54A, 54C again made some improvement. with each generation they narrow the gap between US techonology vs theirs. you can't expect them to build something that can match US destroyer the 1st try. how many time we upgrade our f16, destroyer over the years as technology advance. they bascially start from point of 0, while we start further ahead of them. we have 60yrs of experience, technology etc. they only start modernize since the 90's.

same with their J10, they keep improving the capability of the jet by adding better electronic, engine and other things. thing how many upgrades, variation of F16 went through as technology advance.

 

Yep their are to many civil servants, as my dad always says half of them don't even have a job. I know where you are coming from most of the MOD cuts are civilians, this is the problem in the UK atleast, Labour only cares about workers and the Conservatives only care about making or saving money, none really cares about the people or saving money just getting elected.

 

Are you left or right wing when it comes to political issues?

If you haven't guessed by now I am rightwing.

I watch quite a few leftwing videos on Youtube, like TYT and Wingwaabuddha, they all say key programs should be cut, never social programs or health care. Training should always come first, technology can only take you so far, the UK has cut back on pilots training and the numbers of fast jet pilots, I would rather have less Eurofighters and more better pilots.

 

Uncle Ferd says dat Asian horde gonna come over here an' eat our lunch...

Asia military budget to outgrow Europe this year
Mar 7, 2012 - Military spending in Asia will top that in Europe for the first time this year, a London-based think tank said yesterday in its annual assessment of the strength of the world's armies.

 

I haven't seen any actual proposed cuts in US military spending. All I've seen are reductions in previously proposed increases in US military spending. These are often mislabeled as "cuts" when in fact they are not. They are merely reductions in increases in previously proposed spending.

 

Jimmy "the worthless one" Carter, (Obamaprompter's favorite POTUS), pulled the same chit in the late 1970's. Had we not stepped up and elected Ronald Reagan, we woulda been under the Soviet boot.

 

Uncle Ferd says his Nephew is not tooooooo smart.

Matter o' fact: a box o' rocks is jus' like Albert Einstein hissef to his dim witted Nephew..... burp.... pffffffffft....

Ferd thinks it is amazin' he can even breathe on his own....... (he can't tie his own shoes).....

 

Yes the US does. However, single ship classes are fairly rare in the US Navy. These are almost unheard of, and normally they were used more as a test-bed to develop more advanced ships to follow.

One such example was the USS Enterprise, CVN-65. The first nuclear aircraft carrier in the world. They learned a lot of things during it's construction and sea trials, and instead of making more of her class, they instead designed and built the highly-successfull Nimitz class of carriers.

The same was also done with several early Nuclear Submarines, like the USS Nautilus, USS Narwhal, USS Triton, and USS Sea Wolf. But these were all made specifically as experimental and test platforms, with no intention to build more of these ships.

China does things on the fly, and makes so many changes that each group is essentially a different class of ship. Building 2 or 3 at a time, then moving on to the next class.

But this is how they have always done their projects. Trying to figure out how many classes of tanks they have (each one claimed to be better then the last) is enough to give you a headache.

Actually, the Type 054 is a frigate, not a destroyer. The Type 052 is a destroyer. So I will contine assuming that is what you mean.

Yes, they build a few, then move on. Exactly as I said. Let's explore this a minute, shall we?

Type 052, 2 ships
Type 051B, 1 ship
Type 052B, 2 ships
Type 051C, 2 ships

These have all been made since the late 1990's. Single and dual class ships, then move on to an entirely new class. And each is radically different from the other. They are simply experimenting on the fly, building 1 or 2, then moving on since it did not work out like they expected.

And a lot of the actual equipment on board is of Russian/Soviet design. The air defense on the newest Type 051C is the good old S-300/SA-N-20.

And no, I did not make a mistake. China is still bouncing back and forth between building upgrades of the Type 051 and Type 052.

The Type 054 Frigate is actually a 2 class test class, and was followed by the successfull Type 054A, of which they have built 13. But there is no Type 054B or Type 054C.

I would agree, if so much of the fire control and weapons did not come from Russia. A lot of the componants from these ships, engines, fire control, weapons systems, defensive systems, radars, etc is actually of Russian or French manufacture. About the only things that are actually "Chinese" are the hulls and CIWS systems.

And you really cant even say that the hull is Chinese. The hull for the Type 054 class is actually taken from the French La Fayette class frigates. China bought the rights to make copies of it and that is exactly what they did.

Yes, we make upgrades. Everybody does that. But we do not build 1 or 2 of a class then move on to the next class.

Trust me, I know about upgrades to systems. The M-4 is just an upgrade to the venerable M-16. The PATRIOT system I work with has been changed many times over the years.

But guess what, take somebody who worked with PATRIOT in 1980, 1990 or 2000 and put them in front of the newer version, and it will look the same. This is because it is the same. They remove one componant and replace it with an upgraded one. But it is still the same PATRIOT system, just upgraded. With the exception of the PAC-3, they are all exactly the same.

And because they build them pretty much to the same spec (aircraft, ships, missile systems), they later go back and when the older ones come in for a refit they upgrade them so they match the newer versions.

However, with aircraft they are often of different models for a reason. You name the F-16, and that is a good example.

YF-16, these were the originals, only 2 made for trials and testing. Single seat fighters, these were then replaced by the F-16 FSD, 4 single an d 4 dual seat variants and were used for testing and evaluation. They were later used for upgrades on all following F-16 variants.

F-16A/B, these were the first generation, made as both single and dual seat models. These were used until the C/D models came out, then either upgraded to C/D specifications, converted to training use, or sold to other nations.

F-16C/D, improvements in avionics, new weapon capabilities, new radar. These also had larger stabilizers then most of the older A/B series.

F-16E/F, this was a model made purely for export, so did not have the same avionics and radar as the US model.

F-16IN, this is a model designed for export.

F-16IQ, this is another model designed for export.

F-16V, another model made for export.

So as you can see, there were not all that many production versions made for the US, only 4. The only difference between the A and B, and the C and D is single or dual seat, and the controls required. So all you have is the original A/B, and the replacement C/D. The E/F, IN, IQ, and V were not made for the US, but for foreign customers.

And a lot of the older A/B models have been upgraded until they are the same as C/D models.

Of course, that is only covering the main production models. There were various other test models made, normally by converting an existing aircraft to test other capabilities. Like the A-16, a close air support model (the Air Force was considering replacements of the A-10), and the F/A-16 (another CAS model, the retention of the A-10 made it unneeded). The F-16A(R), a recon version proposed for export. The F-16 Recce, a proposed recon veriation for the US that was not adopted. Then the RF-16A/C, a model made for export that included both combat and recon capabilities. Plus dozens of other test units like the Vought 1600 Naval version.

But these test versions as I said were generally made out of existing aircraft (often times the original F-16 FSD models, or older A/B models). And when the test was completed they were then modified into the next test model.

 

Oh, I care about the people, don't get me wrong.

But the military is supposed to be a fighting force, not a job service for civilian employment. We spend a lot of money on training our military to do it's job. Then we turn right around and hire civilians to do the job, leaving the military with nothing to do.

And if we ever do need a full mobilization for war, we are certainly not taking those civilians with us. Most of our supply clerks have no experiance beyond running a small Company level supply section. Because the higher supply organizations (Brigade/Regiment/Division) are now civilian run.

I say start the cuts by getting rid of most of them, and putting the military back to work doing what it is supposed to do. I was a gate guard at a base for 4 years. I find it a disgrace now that most of our bases are guarded by civilians.

 

Yes I am. Right or Left wing.

I do not believe in placing such labels on my politics. And if you watch, I will often come down on both sides of such a debate.

But to me, when it comes to the military there should be no "wings". It should simply be what is best for the nation and the people in uniform. I have supported both sides depending on the issue, and also fought against both sides.

However, as a generalization because I support and am a member of the military, that makes me "Right Wing" by default, no matter what other beliefs or views I may have.

If you haven't guessed by now I am rightwing.

I generally ignore YouTube videos. 99% of them are nothing but coprolite, and a complete waste of time. I prefer good old fashioned reading and research myself, normally from multiple sources (as unbiased as I can find them). This way I can look and compare one to the other, and make up my own mind on a subject.

I refuse to let somebody else make my decisions for me. And watching a 5 minute long "Oh gee whiz" video is a huge waste of time, when I can read the same information and get more out of it in a fraction amount of time.

 

Did doing gate guarding make you a better solider?

 

some i agree some not. unlike US, china has no experience in building modern ships at all. so its gonna take them some trail & errors to get it right, and i won't call each version of 52 is a different class, there are difference. as for import tech. it has technology influence from russia before, but right now mostly their design are derviative from technology and knowledge they acquired before. french never sold china military technology due to embargo after 89. judging by the 52, and spec, most stuff are made by themself after significant study on other military ships, technology, and experience they acquired over the year.

as i mention before there are multiple reason as why they build 2 ships/year. they are not gonna draw a uber ship design and later find themself stuck. they gonna experinment with ships, found out what they need, then improve it.

US has the ability to build advance military system becase we have the experience, technology, and knowledge base to back it up. china on the other hand try to figure out how to build a ship from type 51(luda) class ship to a modern aegis like ship. they can't transform a 50-60's type ship to a modern destroyer in one big step. they have to do it incrementally, find whats right for them. imagine how diffcult will be for US if we try to design/build a F22 type bird without knowledge from previous generation of stealth plane such as f117. its like transform from vietnam era f4 to f22 overnight. china want to build a ship that can match US destroyer, but they can't do that overnight, especially they don't have access to western technology.

my opinion of china military development is they try to acquire as much advance technology from foreign countries as possible, so they can save on time and R&D cost. no point to re-invent the wheel. once they acquire these technology they make improve version of derviative, then build a new technology base on that derviative, and continually improving/upgrade it. hence the reason we seen much less military purchase from russia compare to a decade ago.

if you look at 51 luda, 52, 52B then 52C, you see the technology, hull design, etc are improving with each generation until it start resemble western destroyer. each generation has some upgrades from previous version. its impossible for chinese to build from 51 to 52C in gaint big step, impossible for anyone. if they try that, they will still be stuck in development, with huge overturn etc.

 

Well I am right wing on every issue. I defend the British empire, something my Labour supporting friend say is abhorrent, he says what Britain did in India was disgraceful, yet he say Attlee is the best PM the UK ever had, and he can't get passed that. He says the UK should invest in building roads and new high speed railways, I think the UK should build new shipyards and factories to build state of the art ships, cars and other things. I thing there should be an EU military with the UK and France leading, he says their shouldn't. I am against multiculturalism, he is for it. I think the UK should be a Christian nation, he doesn't. I support the monarchy, he doesn't. He supports the NHS, I don't.

From what little I know about the US, leftwingers are normally against war and the US projecting power and supporting Israel, rightwingers are for all of those things. But they all support the military.

I normally watch 3 hours of video a day, from both sides. I also read some articles. I must have read 50 plus articles just on the Falklands.

You seem to be part of the unhear majority.

 

That has nothing to do with it. It is our base, our gate, we should be guarding it.

After all, when you go overseas, you normally do not find civilians guarding our gates. We do it ourself there, so we should do it ourselves here also.

 

Ahh, but the La Fayette design is older then that, the research goes back to the mid-1980's. And in the 1980's, China and France did a lot of partnerships, including the earlier Type 053 Frigate. Many of these ships had French guns on them, and flew Chinese copies of French helicopters (Harbin Z-9, locally made copy of the French Eurocopter).

Just like the Soviet Union, China was never above espionage and copying to achieve their designs.

Have you looked at what went into the Type 052?

The radars were made by France.
The fire control came from France.
The engines were made by the US.
The anti-ship missiles are a copy of the Soviet Kh-35.
The anti-air missiles are a copy of the French Crotale.
The hull is basically a French Floreal, with a combination French Floreal and La Fayette superstructure.
The CIWS uses mostly designs from the French SAGEM.

Yes, a lot of the componants have been made in China. But they were not actually developed by China. And as embargos went into effect, they simply replaced these with locally made versions. But they are still almost entirely copies of what they had bought a decade earlier.

And this continues through the later upgrades.

The Type 052B uses the Soviet SA-11 air defense missile system.
It also uses a Chinese copy of a French 100mm Naval gun.
But the helicopter is changed to the Soviet Ka-27.

Then we move to the Type 052C.
Another copy of the Soviet S-300 air defense missile.
A copy of the Soviet Kh-55 cruise missile (they bought an entire production facility from the Russians and had it shipped to China in 1995).

As you can see, the most powerful weapons and systems on each of these ships is not really "Chinese" technology. About the only thing that seems to be entirely Chinse on any of them is the newer YJ-62 missiles on the Type 052C class. Most of the systems are still the old ones they bought/acquired from France and the Soviets/Russians and simply copied.

 

How can you defend the indefensible? I doubt you know enough about the British empire to put up any good argument to defend it.

 

Well, I think if oyu talk to most here, they would consider me unquestionably a "Right Winger".

Yet by following your definition, I would be unquestionably a "Left Winger".

That is why I do not place such words on my beliefs. I am not locked into any ideology, other then equality and justice to all that deserve it. And to me that means anybody unless they have done something to no longer deserve such protections.